Shana Tova!!!!

Dear family and friends, First and foremost, we wanted to wish you all Shana Tova!!! Better late than never... We hope you will all enjoy every single day and find yourselves surrounded by love and happiness!

This post will be dedicated to a bunch of observations I have collected about living in the US from my point of view, interleaved with some background about the place we live in (if this is of no interest to you - feel free to stop reading. Really!). Before getting there, however, I wanted to tell you all that I've finally found a new job, as a software engineer in a company named Vocollect. This company has been my first preference for a long time, and it seems like my persistence and patience paid off. Indeed, it's an industry job, with all the implications, both good and bad, but all in all I believe it will be an improvement, and I'm very happy about this new development. I will start there in a few weeks, at the end of the current month full of holidays-and-no-daycare... A new year and a new beginning!

A note in place: all the observations below reflect my opinion, and are by no means absolute truth. I'll start by elaborating a bit about the place we live in. Pennsylvania lies on the east coast of the United States, and is one of the first states in the US - the second when considering statehood dates, and one of the only 3 which were established by the end of 1787. Its population is about twice that of Israel (circa 12 millions) and its area is almost 6 times larger than Israel. And still, in US terms Pennsylvania is a rather densely populated state (more than 3 times the average population density in the US), which reflects the inconceivable size of this nation.

Politically speaking, it's interesting to note that Pennsylvania for the most part is blue (democrat) on its west and east sides (namely in its two big cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh), with a big red (republican) area in the middle, composed mainly of smaller villages and towns. This dichotomy is fairly prominent, and is also reflected by the big number of hate groups in the state (see http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp, where PA is ranked pretty high). In a sense, this is a smaller-scale phenomenon similar to the big picture in the US - blue on the coasts, red in the mid-west and south.

Pittsburgh, located in the south-west part of Pennsylvania and reputed to be a steel-industry city with a heavy mid-western feel, is indeed not as east-coasty as Philadelphia, but nowadays it's certainly a liberal and modern city. The steel industry has practically vanished, and the city boasts a huge medical center serving people from many states in the north-east, several good universities (Carnegie Mellon University being the most famous) and a high quality of life. As I've written previously, it is a wonderful city to live in, at least for families with kids.

For us, Israelis who are used to living in practical isolation from neighboring countries, the reality here is very different: within about 2 hours driving we can be in Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia or even New-York. Sure enough, there is no border to cross and the only indication that you drove into a different state is a road sign, and this is exactly my point - despite some differences between the states, this is one HUGE country. I am amazed every time I examine a map.

It's obvious, though, that it is not mere physical size which lends the US its astonishing power. I should emphasize that with "power" I'm not referring only to military power, but to a much broader definition. Examining areas like science, technology, economy, innovation and many others shows that America is an exceptionally strong nation! Furthermore, my belief is that if faced by an external challenge or threat, the ability of the American people to unite and deal with such a challenge is far better than any other nation, including the European Union altogether. Don't get me wrong - this is not to say that American society has no flaws and weaknesses, on the contrary! I wonder how, despite all these weaknesses (I'll mention some of them below), this society is so strong.

What is it, then, that makes the United States so powerful? To me, I must say, this fascinating question is only partially-solved. Before speculating, though, I'll raise another question: who's an American?

There are people from all over the world here - India, far-east, middle east, Europe, south-America… you name it. On the bus ride from Carnegie Mellon University to our home, one can hears numerous languages on a daily basis - Spanish, Chinese, French, Hebrew, Russian, Japanese, German, Portuguese, Hindi and many others. True, this isn't the case everywhere in the states, but it is the case in many cities. While this is also the case in London or Berlin, I doubt if it is in Liverpool or Hamburg, which are comparable to Pittsburgh in this sense. Furthermore, I'm still surprised sometimes, when a totally Chinese-looking person opens their mouth and the English, intonation, accent and everything, is so very American.

I'm saying nothing new when emphasizing the role of immigration in American history, but it is my opinion that this country's main source of strength lies in its immigrants. This country has been attracting immigrants from all over the world for many decades. For the most part, by natural selection, only the more creative, determined and ambitious managed to make it, bringing with them new ambitions, entrepreneurship and eagerness to this society. There surely are additional possible explanations, and I would love to hear about them if you'd like to share your ideas.

The most prominent weakness of the American society, in my opinion, lies in the unbelievable gaps between the wealthier Americans and the poor ones, incredible wealth side by side with extreme poverty. None of you could miss the sights from New Orleans, and it was no coincidence that most of the victims were exceptionally poor. We all know that pure capitalism is inherent to the American way of life, but only when I started living here did I fully grasp its implications, with some help from a book called "Nickel and Dimed" I recently read (highly recommended, by the way, see http://www.nickelanddimed.net/). You hear many (justified!) complaints about the deteriorating situation in this sense in Israel, but in this aspect the US is far worse. Poor people here are truly miserable, with almost no social services, very little welfare support and practically no affordable health services. Furthermore, a basic conception in the American society is that if you're poor it is your fault - you didn't succeed in "making it", implying that you did something wrong along the way.

Another aspect is the speculative nature of pensions here - big portions of pension money are invested in speculative avenues such as stock markets. This has a lot to do with the fact that so many retired people can barely support their basic needs. What's more, many inherent things in the structure of society work towards sustaining the socioeconomic stratification. Take, for example, the cost of high-education here, averaging $30,000 per year in a top private university, usually to be funded by the students or their family. It's no wonder that poor people have little chance being admitted into such institutions, and their career path, future earnings and standard of living are often determined early in their lives. Sure enough, there are exceptions, and the social mobility in America is relatively high, but these factors cannot be ignored.

In general, my very strong impression is that in the United States, the dollar is king: if you have the money you'll have access to everything you want, and accordingly if you don't have the money you're screwed. And you're on your own! It touches many other characteristics of the society here - the extreme materialism, blatant consumerism and the culture of admiring the rich. However, I already mentioned these aspects in previous postings, so I'll skip them here.

America is full of contradictions: as opposed to abandoning the poor people, the American society treats people with special needs truly admirably (e.g. kids and adults with down-syndrome). Unlike in Israel, where such people are virtually hidden as much as possible, the approach here is that they should be equal participants in the society. I was thrilled to see kids with down-syndrome participate in a summer camp with all the other kids, as well as group of special-needs teenagers having all sorts of activities adjacent to the JCC daycare classes. Interestingly, the kids usually don't notice the difference, and without an adult to indicate, they learn that this is a natural part of life. I think this is definitely a tribute to the American society.

Almost last but definitely not least, I'd refer to the culinary issue. You all heard of the obesity problem in the states, but when living here one sees on the streets people of inconceivable sizes!!! The sad part is that it's fairly clear why this is happening - fruit and vegetables are so very expensive, while junk food is relatively cheap and amazingly accessible, virtually present everywhere. Add the enormous size of portions in restaurants (did I mention extravagance?) and the culture of eating out instead of cooking at home, and you'll have the full picture. A couple of specific examples: in Noga's summer camp, the daily lunch menu included potato chips, usually without any fresh fruit or vegetables. In her public school, lunch is based on a *federal* menu, and you'll find mainly greasy junk food (French fries, pizza and the like). Need I say more?!

I've already mentioned fundamental materialism, and it relates to the American tendency to make things BIG. The cars here are humongous, real monsters, with SUVs all over the place. Even in models that can be found in Israel and Europe, the engine volumes are consistently larger. The size of houses here is astonishing - I frequently wonder why a family with 2 kids (at least with Caucasian families here, you rarely see more than 2 kids) would want to live in a 5-bedroom home, plus basement. In many suburbs in the US, local zoning laws prohibit residential land allocations below a fixed size, typically 2 acres or more. To give you an idea - 2 acres are more than 8000 square meter! The relation between these aspects (huge houses to heat or cool, stretching into endless suburbia, fuel- consuming vehicles) and ecological issues is obvious, but as I previously wrote this is another weak aspect in America - the environment isn't a particularly high priority here. For example, an interesting fact: in the past two decades or so, the average size of new residential homes built in the US increased by about 30%! We can only hope that recent spikes in gasoline prices will encourage a more responsible energy policy in the US, though I wouldn't hold my breath...

Shana Tova again to everybody, Giora

PS: We decided to renew the family web site we once had (indeed, it needs some update, which I hope to complete soon). Check it in http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/aprior/index.html.